Britain-e

Today’s visitors

Visitors since 2009.4.1

Pageloads since time immoral

The ‘b’-word has been mentioned in the press. Again. At the time of Mr Spielberg’s disengagement with BOCOG there was some talk of boycotting the 2008 Olympics in protest over China’s involvement with Darfur, but it then faded away. Since the recent troubles in Tibet the topic has been revived and the notion is now being discussed amongst some European political circles. I’ve said once before that not going to the 2008 Olympics seems rather foolish after going to all the trouble of awarding the games to Beijing in the first place and I still feel the same way so perhaps a little clarification is necessary.

Does anyone remember the 1980 Games, held in Moscow? That year the USA persuaded many other countries [about 60, I believe] to join it in boycotting the Moscow games in protest at the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. The games went ahead as planned; the only disappointment for the spectators was that the records were not pushed as far forward as might have happened if everyone had participated. The conflict in Afghanistan continued for another 10 years and the only people to have been affected directly from the action were those athletes instructed by their countries to not participate. Did the boycott achieve much? Well, the following Olympic games in 1984, and held in Los Angeles, were boycotted, tit for tat, by the Russians and that is the only result I am aware of. Not long ago Prime Minister Brown boycotted the EU Conference in Lisbon as President Mugabe [of Zimbabwe] had been invited to attend. I’m unsure what Gordon Brown hoped to achieve by that, teach Robert Mugabe a lesson and scare him back home perhaps, tell Europe that Britain and Zimbabwe don’t mix maybe, I can only guess. What I do know is that he scored a resounding silence with this fatuous gesture. So much for the power of the boycott.

Looking at this from a slightly different angle, in what way are the British public and other westerners getting involved in this matter. Are they boycotting Chinese goods? Refusing to buy anything with a ‘Made in China’ stamp on it? Are western businessmen withdrawing from deals struck with Chinese enterprises? Have our ministers refused to attend trade missions in China? Have we advised all tourists to not travel to China? No. Really? In fact, for the rest of the world it’s pretty much business as usual. So why must athletes be singled out to bear this message of disapproval to China and have their years of training and hopes sacrificed? At best this can only be described as an exercising of double standards, but at worst it is nothing short of gross hypocrisy.

In the b-camp there are some who are convinced the way forward is to stage an all-out boycott and there is some logic in this as only a boycott supported by the vast majority of participants could effectively stop the event from being staged, but there are others who take what they see as a more pragmatic and moderate view. Instead of denying athletes the opportunity to compete they say we should go ahead and attend, as planned, but boycott the opening ceremony. And if that wouldn’t teach them a lesson I don’t know what will!